How to show seconds on the clock in GNOME 3?

Not sure when this path changed, but as of Ubuntu 13.04 the seconds display can be set in the terminal with:

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface clock-show-seconds true

To turn seconds display off:

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface clock-show-seconds false

and checked with:

gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.interface clock-show-seconds

GUI way:

  1. launch gnome-tweak-tool, sometimes called Advanced Settings
  2. click the Top Bar menu
  3. enable Show seconds

Yes, run this command in a Terminal:

gsettings set org.gnome.shell.clock show-seconds true

And you can verify with:

gsettings get org.gnome.shell.clock show-seconds

Or you can install dconf-tools Install dconf-tools and use dconf-editor to browse to org.gnome.shell.clock